Samsung unveils television that lets two people watch different shows on same screen

Yesterday, the annual Consumer Electronics Show was held, and Samsung brought their A-Game to the table. It seems that the company's new product is poised to end the age-old fight over the remote control: Samsung's new OLED set apparently makes it possible for two viewers to be looking at the exact same screen and yet be watching two entirely different shows.

How on earth do they pull off this feat? Magic? Miracle?

See, these OLED television screens can refresh themselves over 1000 times faster than conventional HDTV screens (wow, it didn't take long for HDTV to become "conventional," did it?). So the images are being updated simultaneously... but how does that translate into a smooth viewing experience, rather than a chaotic mess? The answer is in a special set of glasses which filter out only the show you wish you see from the images being displayed. These special glasses also include ear buds to submit the audio of your selected program, letting both viewers enjoy their separate choices even while seated side by side.

You've got to admit, it's a novel idea. And Samsung wasn't finished.

The OLED will also feature voice command prompting called S-Recommendation. Viewers can use natural language to ask for different programming characteristics, for example an actor they like, and the TV set will offer suggestions based on what’s available on conventional TV, online, and on the DVR. "It’s the most powerful personalized TV experience ever created," touted Tim Baxter, the Samsung Electronics America President. Baxter added that their new OLED will "change the way you discover content."

What do you think? Would this solve problems in your home? Would you be willing to wear special glasses in order to watch the programming you'd like to see?

Given that the idea of having to wear special glasses in order to watch 3D TV hasn't gone over that well, I can't see that this will go over any better. People just don't want to have to wear glasses, not even to correct vision problems. Trust me...as someone who has had to wear glasses for over 44 years, I know!!

Justa

Message Posted On Jan 8th, 2013, 12:39 am

This is in fact an idea that I saw proposed (and worked out, mechanically) in a publication of of the dutch version of ELEKTOR (elektuur), a german electronics magazine.
The specific publication was a collected bundle of 200+ circuits from amateur- and professional-electronic designers.
It used a set of small motors on the stems of specially prepared glasses to provide the 'shutter' function by using a physical 'paddle-shaped' piece of cardboard that was rotated infront of the wearer's eyes.
Two pairs of glasses should be prepared with anti-phase shutter-positions. Combined with headphones and a special circuit that would use half-speed updating of video-frames on a CRT (basically, adding two video-streams together by multiplexing between the two inputs for each frame), you would get a 25fps (PAL) or 30fps (NTSC) video-feed.
Ofcourse, the idea wasnt quite practical with the materials and technologies at the time, but when shutter-glasses became available with video-cards for PC's... this idea always came back to me.
And now Samsung has a 'novel idea' ?... Perhaps ;)

fierras Level 6 (36%)Points: 76.1Mood: enragedSince: 26/Oct/05

Message Posted On Jan 8th, 2013, 12:15 am

I've actually seen a video recently of someone doing exactly this with 3d glasses in order to play multiplayer games with a friend on the same screen.